


The echoes of a dream I dreamt

by verywhale



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Psychedelic Dreams, Ambiguous Relationships, Backstory Speculations, Body Horror, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Near Death Experiences, Non-Explicit Sex, Obsession, Past Character Death, Self-Harm, Sibling Incest, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22986970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verywhale/pseuds/verywhale
Summary: Every time Shinguji falls asleep, he dreams of his sister; and every time he dreams of her, she has a new story to tell him.[It's a reboot of my discontinued and deleted work. See author's notes for more info.]
Relationships: Shinguji Korekiyo/Shinguji Korekiyo's Sister
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Back in 2017, before the game was officially localized, I wrote 3 or so chapters of an overly ambitious AU called "This Trip is My Last Slip". It was supposed to be rather focused on Shinguji/Amami, with some sister business here and there in a form of dream sequences and your good ol' tulpamancery. Maybe someone even remembers it.
> 
> But for many different reasons, I ended up dropping and then deleting that thing. So now I launch the reboot which is now a nightmares compilation with the exploration of their (very ambiguous) relationship, which is what I actually wanted all that time. There will be 8 of them, and it's technically a one shot collection I suppose.
> 
> I was stealing work/chapter titles for the original version from Arcturus songs; and I am still doing that now. The song is [Nocturnal Vision Revisited](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ag_f631i-Y).

Grey clouds, grey mountains, grey rivers pass beside the rocky path at different speeds, skirting corners and crashing into each other with splashes of purple. White trees shoot their nimble fingers out of the fog and catch the debris. As a wedge-shaped mountain and a blurry stream grow larger, it hugs an endless square room and plunges into the depths of black fog. Only the trail is still, and not a single rock crunches under Shinguji’s bare steps.

He only sees the trail. He doesn’t dare to raise his head, to face the fog or the perpetual rush of his surroundings. He pretends to be a hunched figure, obscured by its white clothes—another pointless sight that forms part of the scenery.

He feels the winds coiling around him. He convinces himself he’s another piece of the room’s medley, no different from the shapes around him. An object moving on an invisible path towards an invisible exit.

Whirling and howling, a breeze assaults his sleeve. Shinguji clenches his teeth as the reckless spirit lashes at his faded scars, placing a fresh coat above them. If he goes further, they’ll go away; if he doesn’t react, they’ll leave him.

Another spirit circles him and reaches his hooded face, but Shinguji brushes it away. As it crashes into the wall, its companions fly closer with more giggles. He wraps himself up in his cape and stoops, his hair escaping from its cover.

It takes a few seconds for a ghost to pull a strand. Shinguji shakes his head, but the spirit seizes his hood, throwing it behind his back. His eyes twitch as if struck by a glare of fluorescence, but in fact, it only grows darker and moister. He is just one with the swirling fog, another friend of the white trees, a mere object—

The spirits flood the insides of his cape. They capture him, thrilled to finally grope at his wounds. Is it a spirit jeering, the muddy water babbling, or the trees’ limbs thrusting and tearing?

Mountains break into rubble and sprout like newborn plants from the rivers. Clouds turn into threads, whorls, knots, clots; block his path. There is no ceiling, just layers of gloom and a canopy of naked branches. Shinguji throws a glance at his feet as they continue to move of their own volition, running from the hostile spirits and the thrusting trees and the sinuous rivers and the feathery clouds and—

“Do not dare, Korekiyo.”

Shinguji slows and stares into the mist. He can’t discern the source of the voice; the surroundings continue their turbulent lives undisturbed.

“Ignore those ugly kids. Do not take them seriously.”

The spirits don’t stop their abuse and grow more agitated after hearing _her_ calls. They scratch and cleave his body, reopen his ancient wounds, dive themselves inside them. Shinguji lets out a quaking moan; he bends his knees, but they don’t touch the ground. Grabbing his jaw, he slowly opens his eyes.

“Do not falter. Those words hold no meaning. Continue your route.”

Clouds unfold on both sides, curling and opening a black tunnel at the end of the trail. His face twists into a grimace: eyes widening, cheeks burning, teeth chattering. If he clutches himself tighter, the nasty spirits will burst under his grip; if he runs faster, they’ll drop off him and crash into the stones. The torture will end if he obeys the healing voice.

“You know what is right, Korekiyo. Do not stray from your path.”

He steps on his fallen hood while rushing, but doesn’t pay it any heed. If he advances towards the tunnel, he’ll escape this limbo; if he obeys the voice, he’ll enter the world that gave birth to all previous worlds; if he obeys his sister, they’ll soon reunite in the new dimension. She will greet him and relieve him of all the pain and delusions. The world where all matters appear and die, where all universes loop and burst, will welcome him. He’ll return to where he truly belongs.

“I have faith in your vigilance, Korekiyo.”

No longer watching the trail, Shinguji breaks further and feels emptiness beneath his feet. He gasps, but can’t hear himself, his ears stunned by the screech of the shattering matter.

Grey clouds, grey mountains, grey rivers melt into a bloody void. One, two, four, more and more eyes pop out of the space and stare at Shinguji as he grips the abyss that swallows his body. A mouth yawns and bites into an eye. A hand tightens and crushes a mouth. A yellow eye, streaked with its burst vessels, sprouts from a hand and sucks it inside itself.

“Sister! Sister!”

He can’t see himself, but feels the spirits, even more aggressive, tearing at his remains and handing them to the flashing mouths. Anything that could drive the torturers away, or let him scream and call for his savior— _her_ —is gone. Only his senses remain, bathing him in a twisted mixture of pain and delight.

“You do not like this, do you?”

The soothing laugh grazes his ears again, malicious now, but he has no means to banish it. Red space begins to flicker and twirl once more, but he has no eyes to block it out. The dimension stops his consciousness from slipping, but he has no capacity to defy it. Streams of bubbles fan out beside him as the voice echoes:

“But this world is where you truly belong.”


	2. Chapter 2

Shabby buildings and broken roads unfold like magic castles in a pop-up book. Every step sounds like a paper crumbling. Flat figures of workers, beggars, hookers and orphans wander and spin around in messy lanes between factories and shelters. In each murky corner, Shinguji discovers a whole new world, each of them more unexpected than the previous one.

The face of a mother who’s just returned from her mine shift is smeared with coal; she had no time to wash it while her children demand dinner and a nighttime story. The book slips out from her fingers and she nearly passes out during reading— but she can’t let the children stay without her care. So she keeps reading, even though there’s no more energy left in her voice.

An old hunched woman sings about a lonely princess in the tower waiting for her promised fate to happen. Her voice is like a decayed squeaking door, and the rusted can at her feet gets filled with rocks and cigarette stubs. A drunken man grabs the can, but when he can’t find a single penny, he just throws it at the hag’s humpback.

Two teenage girls sit on the porch, helping each other to get ready to go out in high society. One of them has a black eye and erratic tattoos on her chest. The other one, with calloused feet and a dress barely hiding her body, keeps quietly sobbing; her tears wash away the powder her friend has applied before. The tattooed girl gives up on wasting more cosmetics on her and just pulls her away from the suburbs towards the horizon, speckled with multicoloured lights.

 _This is where the true human beauty lies in_ , Shinguji says under his breath. He moves along the straight path, but his gaze darts from side to side. He won’t miss any charming sight. And this is what makes him to bump into a bulky man, walking towards him—or has he appeared just now?

“Ah, I apologize,” Shinguji says, but the man moves over with a dry glare.

“I don’t need apologies from _you_.”

Shinguji flinches, but keeps silent. He lets his encounter go past him and would continue his travel, if another hoarse call hasn’t come into notice:

“Why did ya answer ‘im? Don’t waste ye time on human scum.”

“Yeah,” this time it’s the shrill voice of the old street singer. “Why bein’ mannerly with someone like him?”

Shinguji turns back and sees these three throwing their hostile looks at him. No doubt they’re talking about him, but it doesn’t matter as long as he just goes on and observes. Even— _especially_ —when people show their ugliness, he still loves them. No foul words will stop him on his way.

He takes another turn on the widest alley, packed with carts. Flat paper figures appear by his sides as he is walking and watching; and once he faces left, a young girly voice rings on the right:

“Ah, I wish ol’ man carpenter would kick his snobbish ass!”

“I would’ve joined, to be honest,” a tired male voice responds. Shinguji looks for a person speaking, but they must be shifting towards his blind spot. The girl he’s just heard emerges behind Shinguji’s back and giggles:

“Of course you would. You’re the hero, and this guy’s just asking to be broken in half.”

“That’s why he left his house, I guess?” another man replies, his voice younger and more enliven. “He must’ve lost all his fear!”

Shinguji doesn’t stop. More figures grow on both sides, their empty black eyes and mouths emitting blind malice.

“Such a weakling wouldn’t stand even against my newborn kid!”

“How he even dares to come to our place? He isn’t welcome there.”

“He deserves to be erased from history, so no one will know that he’s ever existed!”

Inane detestation of theirs makes Shinguji’s temples pulse maddeningly, his cheeks flash under his mask. He hopelessly tries to brush the anxiety off. Cruelty is one of the bases of human nature, he reminds himself. One of their weaknesses, driving forces, and ravenous desires they satiate now by cursing at him. By taking their venom in portions, he only fulfills his needs for the fieldwork. The subject itself holds no weight for Shinguji as long as he and everyone else revels in their urge for abuse.

“Don’t let our children look at him…”

“I pity his sister so much…”

“She’s so sick, and he still lives her off! I can’t stand him!”

All sounds die out for a while before reappearing again—along with the noises of his throbbing heart and laboured breathing. As long as the paper dolls didn’t touch the forbidden topic, Shinguji was able to endure any damage. But the line’s already been crossed, and his patience lasts for no longer.

“Quiet… be quiet…” he mutters through his clenched teeth. But as if mocking his own behaviour, people are just immersed in the talk itself, and Shinguji’s presence has lost any hint of a meaning. Whoever he faces—a man or a woman; old or young; strong or weak—they give him as much attention as for the crumpled paper decoration, lying in mud, waiting to be stepped on.

“I can’t imagine how she still handles him. If I were her, I’d throw him in the nearest dump.”

“She’s too weak to do so… and he just uses her kindness!”

“He only wants to lay her, and nothing more. Tch, what a sick bastard.”

Countless voices keep overlapping, but Shinguji can discern every insult, wounding him worse than a bullet, and only more evil sounds slide into the holes they drill in him. He pulls his hat over his ears, but the flow of echoes keeps coming through.

“You are just spouting nonsense…” he says, but his own call hits an impassable wall of slanders, and perishes before reaching anyone.

“What… what are you talking about?! You all—you do not know what are you talking about! This is just your delusion!”

But no matter how loud his shouts are, they pass by the unshakable crowd. Their hisses chase him and scrape his exposed nerves as he retreats. Familiar alleys extend on Shinguji’s way back, but the curses follow and ambush him from every nook and cranny.

“Can he die already? It would be better for everyone, especially for his poor sister.”

“He’d better do it himself, so we don’t have to get our hands dirty.”

One careless turn on the slick road—and Shinguji lies prone, crushed by the fall of laughter. Vast shadows of his hunters fuse into black void, mottled with red fluttering slashes. Ghastly bells stun him, turning his bones into sand. Consciousness almost fails him, and a point of view passes onto the exterior spirit, now observing Shinguji in his defeated state.

Masked headsmen encircle him, and torches flash in their paper hands. The flame ignites them and the execution field, spreading over the whole sham city. As buildings collapse and dense toxic fumes veil the sky, the oaths and roars go up in smoke and fire. Shinguji’s flesh melts, his eyes a thick dripping matter, oozing from their sockets, ash mingles in the blood flow. But there are no screams, no cramps or any signs of life remaining in his body, until a hollow slum returns the watchful spirit back and grants Shinguji his senses, rebirth from delirious pain—

His scorched eyes are laid bare to the piercing light, and he finds himself procumbent on the wooden floor, surrounded by bleached walls. His sister lays on the sofa—red and raw as baby, besides her legs covered by a translucent blanket. She has a closed book in her hands, titled _Inevitable Witch Hunt_.

“Welcome back, Korekiyo,” she says, but her smile drops soon as she notes Shinguji’s shrinking gaze, fixed on the book cover. She drops the book on the floor, and it vanishes before falling—but Shinguji’s fear doesn’t. He squats in attempt to stash from an invisible blast.

“Come here,” she says, spreading her arms. “I shall help you.”

For a split second, she turns into a paper doll with a dull rancour on her static face. The only moment of delusive horror makes Shinguji stand on his knees, shaky and friable, and keep crawling back.

“Please, do not hide from me,” his sister begs. “Staying alone now is pointless and only brings more harm. I am always here for you.”

While keeping himself steady on one hand, Shinguji grasps himself with the other. The memories of the witch hunt left incurable burns in his mind; but no more illusions, visual or auditory, corrupt his sister’s clear smile. But will she stay the same when he comes over, and not transform into a doll with a torch as soon as he falls into her trap? This doubt stops him from making any steps forward. He wants to question this, but his sister interrupts him as he opens his mouth:

“Do not say anything, just come here.”

Eyes closed in an obsessive dread, Shinguji moves ahead—his steps are short and uncertain, as if he’s willing to delay the meet. He finds the sofa by touch. He feels warm arms embracing him and drawing him to the soft body, of silk and milk, her heart quivering against his. And this embrace doesn’t turn into the executioner’s violent grip, dragging him into a deadly snare.

“Please, calm down, they are gone now,” she says, stroking his disheveled hair. He opens his eyes to her rectifying look.

“You said it yourself, Korekiyo: they just deceive themselves. They have no idea what is the truth. They can chase you forever, but it should not hurt you.”

Shinguji lets himself cling on her in return. He feels her tender flesh, not one abrasive, nor a flame; and it helps to regain his composure. Her voice is full of serene caress, which he hasn’t heard for the eternity he spent in the city.

“Do not throw away your emotions for something that futile. If you are able to stand for your feelings, you should ignore what these cowards say.”

He holds on her tighter, and buries his face into her breasts. He can hear her giggle, contented and free of spite.

“And remember: no matter what, I will always love you.”

If her previous words have cast all fears away and soothed his damaged heart, this confession has overflown it with rapture. To embrace her everywhere, to carry out her any order, to sacrifice himself and the world for her sake—there’s no limit for Shinguji’s passion and no end of his devotion.

He raises his head, and she pulls his mask off and gives him a quick kiss—he fails to prolong it—marking his dried flaked lips with red.

“I believe you!” Shinguji says and falls on her chest again. “I will never doubt your love for me.”

“Forget all ill things, Korekiyo. It is only you and me now,” his sister says and presses her lips to his head.

“How do you want me to please you today?” he asks. He leaves his mask off, craving the next kiss soon.

She hums. “I have been thinking a lot how beautiful and enjoyable would it be… if you were boiled alive. Hot water, the matter we can’t abstain from, but that can bring us boundless suffering… What do you think, Korekiyo?”

These are burns and cureless wounds he desires to receive, and burdens he willingly puts on himself. To embrace her everywhere. To carry out all her orders. To sacrifice himself and the world for her sake. These are three wills that have blinded Shinguji’s mind—both in dream and reality.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partially inspired by [The Carrier of Wounds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=919gQ0So498) by Ved Buens Ende.

He walks across the desert, vast and delirious; sands are but blood and the sky is but endless loops of steam, changing its shades as he keeps walking. Tinnitus grasps the space around, but it’s not inside Shinguji’s ears. Each step he takes has its unique sound, be that chirping of a magic bird, splash of water in the lake that heals everyone who approaches it, or a dull crack of bones that couldn’t possibly belong to him; not by chance, not right now.

The sands are hot, but their heat doesn’t transmit through Shinguji’s skin, white and rigid as marble. His hair is of unimaginable length, perhaps even longer than his meaningless path, and it drowns in the sands while he doesn’t see.

For a moment he stops. His arm elongates and sinks in that soup of flickering colours he calls the sky. It lets him slide in, and twirls and slurps around his elbow where it borders on two dimensions. There’s now a torch in his hand, and its touch is like ice. The arm returns to its normal—usual—preferrable—length, and he pulls down his mask. Right now he has no mouth, but just another set of golden eyes, their gaze restlessly drilling the torch.

His arm swings by its own, drawing with the torch like a brush. Smoking row of mountains emerges on the horizon; and Shinguji’s shoulders are like this horizon, laboured with an intense weight of rock and ice. His eyes flash open before the crushing lids bury the view underneath. The birds and ghosts in his steps; they twirl and laugh with their tiny voices, uncatchable and impalpable, save for the stings in Shinguji’s ears upon hearing them.

He straightens up and drops the mountains off. The sands suck them in together with the bothersome laughing mass, and he finally feels that the space in his lungs has become ample, able to fit enough air and metallic splashes of sand inside. He continues to look up, aware of a gentle touch inside his chest, caressing his lungs through the bars of his ribcage. Praising them for freeing themselves; every tap like a brief kiss. He continues to look up, aware that this fondness would dissipate and get out with carbon dioxide once his eyes witness it.

He draws again, now almost in silence—the only sound being the helpless flutter of his eyelashes, stuck to each other in outer corners of his eyes. These new shapes are small and detailed, be that decorations on the old mansion’s roof, soft wrinkles of petals on the blooming trees, or the smiles of two children playing.

They look like twins, but he knows they are not; and that the monstrous masks they wear are their real faces. One of these masks has a large toothy maw and two pairs of black heavy horns, with which the boy rushes towards his sister. She laughs through the sad drooping mouth of her own mask, frozen either in fear or some ancient curse. She can’t see him running towards her, horns dangerously close to her feeble belly, but she evades his charges with ease.

The doors of the mansion slam wide open, and the elder sister comes out, all in jewels and red ribbons and paints. It is her birthday today; and her brother holds her hand so she wouldn’t trip on her giant wooden heels. He would let her go barefoot if it meant her pain to recede, but she has insisted on following the tradition. He would keep her locked inside, away from dangers and worries and threats to her already weak state, but her word is above whatever he thinks. So he chooses to follow and protect, and she gifts him her smile. When her posture crooks, his grip on her becomes tighter, and his face turns red and wet and captured in terror once he imagines her falling. But she stays steady, leaving just a small gasp upon tripping, and continues to go with his eyes everywhere on her.

Inside the house, another pair of siblings stays. They must be in their teens, and the differences in their statures have started showing. He now has to sit up so the sister can reach his head in order to braid his hair. His black locks slip through her fingers like sands, and she slowly twists them around each other. The ribbons and pins lay on her side, and she grabs them without looking, without pausing—all is a part of her dance. She lifts the braids and clips them at the top, revealing a large eye on his nape, twitching rapidly as the light beams into it. He stands up and reels around, adornments in his hair blinking and yelling with joy, and the sister claps, and he hugs her and grants her endless gratitude—with the third eye on his back exposed, he can now sees his sister even if she’s hiding behind, even if she thinks she’s somewhere away.

But they quickly hush each other, as on the second floor there is another couple, that wishes to be in peace. There’s a room so huge that it looks almost empty with just one bed and one mirror—and on this bed she lies; and in this mirror he looks. He would sit next to her if she allowed; but instead she has asked him to look after the reflection of hers, the reflection of his, warped and cojoined unlike they are on the opposite side of the mirror. Lying in bed, ashen and wheezing, with dozens of white bubbly hands choking her—instead of giving her air as they both have imagined—she appears helpless. And she hates to let him see her like this, hates to see the sorrow in his eyes as if she’s no longer around. So she sends him towards the mirror, in which she lives healthy and beautiful and forever with him. At first, this mirage seems like brother himself, but one can briefly see the outlines of her breasts, and a thin shape of her lips like a careful stroke, and her fingers silky and delicate, not bony and harsh and overly long. And as she loses the feel of her spirit, trapped in that useless body, unable to sustain itself without angry machinery, he loses the weight of his body outside the mirror, and transfers himself behind the looking glass, where he and his sister are still alongside each other.

Shinguji watches the air brim with laughs and hum with fond gazes; he hears her caress on his hair while she gathers it in a pompous shape; he feels her voice tell him goodbye, raspy but still full of power and passion. And he closes both pairs of his eyes when his hand swipes the torch again by itself, burning down the charming and mournful imagery of something that has never happened to him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter that has non-con implications in it.
> 
> Inspired by [紅キ雪 | Akaki Yuki](https://youtu.be/REMgv_8P7J8?t=2219) (timestamped) by 身殺 | Mïsogi.

White birds swirl around, no bigger than a sparrow, their wings slashing through cold crispy air. But they don’t sing, and not even these wings produce any sound. They just descend towards the heap of snow in silence, and it turns crimson where they crash and disappear. The birds are white, but the snow gleams with pink watercolors, more and more of them splashing with every little thing landing to its end.

It’s just as chilling inside as it’s outdoors, and the same metallic scent tickles Shinguji’s nostrils. His sister lies in bed, and he lies in her legs, looking at the window instead of her. There’s a book in her hands, pages flapping as if it aims to fly away and bury itself in the grave the winter itself has dug out. Sister’s voice calmly hops over the words and commas, and no cough or wheeze is allowed to break through.

“Many gods has observed that land made of sand and saltwater, but their beloved was the warrior goddess, who also has granted humans the ability to replicate themselves. She could give a new human their right to live just as easily as she would take away it from the old one. With the sacred sword in her hand, she would cut the cord connecting the mother and child, or the neck of a crumbled thing that no longer resembled a human. People of that land feared and loved her the most, and so did her husband, the god of sun.”

Shinguji frowns for a second, confusion pops in his mind. “Are you sure it’s a god of sun and not—”

“And once a year, when her husband would sleep for longer than before, the warrior goddess would walk over the farms and ponds made by her people. Only children would be able to see her, but every adult would confirm their sight since they had also seen her watching over their crops in the absence of sun, when they were just as young.”

The snow is now more pink than white, and it blends with the sky, so hollow and pale with no star visible. Shinguji’s brows fold again, and his fingers shiver like snowflakes that are forced to watch the madness of birds. He listens closer.

“The god of sun had sixteen legs and his own room inside the sky. He had cut it out exactly for that day, so he would sleep here while his wife watched over the farms. _Even the gods need rest_ , he would tell his children, who were nowhere as graceful and kind as their parents. Instead, they were short, brutish, and all covered in thick hair. They had only two legs each, which they stole from frogs and lizards, and they would scream like cats at night. They were silent and obedient under control of their father, but as he slept, they would rush outside and wreak havoc on people’s villages.”

Shinguji shakes his head as he listens, as his ears ring and chirp and pop. “Sister, you are confusing so many things,” he says with a bit more confidence, if not annoyance. “Forgive me, but this story went the wrong way since—”

“Because of these ugly children, the warrior goddess had to watch over the land where humans worked. She would visit one farm, ask local boys and girls if they are safe and sated, and then go to the next one. But once she left, her children would attack this farm and eat all food humans had left for the god of sun. The warrior goddess could sever the link that nourished old human beings, but she couldn’t raise her sword at her own kind. So, her only weakness had to be covered by her husband’s sister, who lived in the oak tree.”

White sheets, which are covering his sister’s legs, are now smeared with pink sweat running down Shinguji’s face. His hand grabs and clutches the ankle hidden behind the cold crispy cloth, but no cracking sound is to be heard. There’s just a large red spot where his wet palm has touched it, and his sister doesn’t move. She doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t stop reading that nonsense.

“The Oak Queen would rise her roots from the ground, just for one day in a year. There were sixteen of them, just like the legs of her brother, on which he would run across the sky. She ran at her root-legs, clutching the sword borrowed from the warrior goddess, and slayed those ugly things when they retreated to her forest to salvage their finds. They would rise again, yes, but not until the other day of the year, when the god of sun would stay up with very little sleep. On that day, they would wait for their father to leave back to his room in the sky, and then they rearranged their bones and flesh and cut down the tree where the Oak Queen lived.”

Red streaks and red spots bloom all over the snow, and the sky loses its mind but cannot stop crying over poor birds. Shinguji turns to see that his sister’s wide eyes are full of red tears. His ribs are creaking under the beating of his fretful heart and lungs. His ears barely hear anymore, as he has denied what he’s been listening to, but now he watches her lips move in the same profane matter.

“The god of sun was mourning the loss of his dearest sister, and his legs would run not as fast anymore. The crops would wither, the darkness would cover the sky and children’s teeth would chatter from cold. The warrior goddess picked up her sword right where the Oak Queen had fallen, and left to the cave, caring no more about the humans. This was where a child with raven wings came up with a trick to make them return.”

Shinguji shuts her mouth with his slimy hand, but her lips brush against it, and he senses the same mad words rising from them. His other hand tears the book away and throws it into the white corner, where it falls silently and turns to pink mess. His heart’s loud echoes don’t let him stay still, so he falls on his sister’s chest and gnaws into it and rips her flesh off. He tastes feathers on his freezing tongue, and his frantic pulse starts taking rhythm, that makes his burrow his teeth deeper into his sister’s body:

“The raven child travelled all over the world until he found the cave protected by men with black serpentine bodies. He knew he would lose the battle with them, so instead he started dancing and flapping around. The serpents laughed so much that the warrior goddess came out of her cave to see what was so funny. And so the raven child took her in his beak and flew back to his village, to people pleading the gods to return and restore their lands. She said she would have to speak to her husband, and took all their offerings with her. Among them was the mirror, and when the god of sun saw his own reflection, he was so fascinated by his own image that he decided to return so people would see how beautiful he was.”

She doesn’t move as there’s nothing left of her chest. She doesn’t move as his fingers burrow into her eyes and ears and mouth. She doesn’t move even his digging and gnawing hurts her more than her words could ever hurt him. He squints his eyes at her, at the sight of her senseless body no longer covered in snow. She tries to speak, for how persistent she is.

“Anf fo be gof of shun fefurbed to be swy anf feefles lanfs wee ferfile afain. Buf he ftill refefed hif fifter, de Oaa Keen, anf onfe a yeer mourfed fer in fis roob in fe swy. Fo, fen be gof of shun fourns be Oaa Keen, ifs finfer on oua lanf.”

No scream ruptures from her ruined chest and stuffed mouth as Shinguji spreads her legs and splits her apart. It’s all red behind the window, but he doesn’t see. She has finished her tale, but he doesn’t hear. Black fog has closed his eyes, and it’s all his racing heart and heavy breaths and moans on the verge of tears that fill insides of his head. She’s just as cold inside, uncaring for his brash moves and thrusts. Red tears gather in his eyes for how motionless she is, silent, apathetic; like a bird that rushes right into the solid pile of snow, ready to splash with color at the cost of its life.


End file.
